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May 6, 2014

Painting!

When we moved into this new house, Cameron and I both agreed - it was livable. But we could also see so much potential via remodeling. And we have grand plans forming in our minds. But we currently don't have the budget to put these plans into action. The problem is we came from a pretty much brand-spanking new home that was almost complete with our little touches.

All we really had to do in the last house was install a mud sink in the laundry room and paint inside. Outside, the backyard needed designing, and we even completed the planned raised flower bed made out of lava rock before we sold the house and moved. I mean, this house had gorgeous granite tile counters in the kitchen, perfect cabinets in our favorite dark, cherry color throughout the house, and tile floor where we wanted. Putting in brand new carpet to sell the house just added to the finished feeling. All I really wanted to do, had we stayed, was build an entertainment center upstairs for the TV, many of our books and a built-in bookshelf for our DVD collection. I think this is why over the last few months Cameron and I both have admitted feelings of disappointment in our new home and why even the little things can sometimes get us bummed out. Don't get me wrong - we would still have made the move. The land is great, especially as our summer garden is growing. And Cameron gets great stress relief from the yard. Plus, my commute is heaven compared to before. It's just that we have these plans and we know we won't have the money we need any time too soon to make these changes. So we've decided to make changes in 2 phases with the new house. Phase 2 will be the major remodel and overhaul of the house; our Ultimate plans, if you will. Phase 1 is going to consist of smaller things; minor adjustments here and there to make the home more functional and more like home. And phase 1, I am happy to report has begun. Each little step made in Phase 1 has helped soothe us and make this house feel more like home.

In some ways, it started with the Fridge. See, we inherited a working white fridge with the house. It didn't have an ice maker, nor a filtered water dispenser. But when we moved it, we just didn't feel like moving it into the garage and our black, ice-making and filtered water dispensing fridge into the house. So our black fridge has been functioning as a second fridge, in the garage. Until the week before Easter.

That's when the white fridge decided to malfunction. The freezer still worked but the fridge was barely keeping anything cold. We moved everything we could into the black fridge and set up our old tiny fridge (think dorm size) from our old upstairs into the main entrance hallway to once again become a beverage fridge. Then we moved the white fridge into the garage to defrost. We actually plugged it back in on Sunday and it is functioning properly, so the defrosting fixed the problem. We'll again have two refrigerators, which is wonderful and something I had grown used to. The white fridge will hold overflow condiments - because apparently we are condiment hoarders - as well as beverages.

BUT before we moved the black fridge into the house, I decided that the are behind the fridge needed to be painted. It took us 3 years to pick a color for the last house. And we loved it so much we knew we wanted to eventually paint all the white walls in the new house with the same color. Why not start when the fridge was out? I mean, its a pain to move it to begin with. Why on earth would I not paint while the opportunity presented itself?!So off to Home Depot we went to get the paint! I also purchased a gallon of white paint, as I decided that the base boards in this house needed a fresh coat. So much dust had accumulated on these things that even a toothbrush scrub down won't remove some of it. And this began phase 1 - painting!

The first paint to go up in our house - behind the fridge

I'm going slow so that I don't overwhelm myself like I did at the old house. We were in such a rush to complete the paint at the last house to get it on the market that we never got to enjoy the finished product and I thought I would never want to pick up a brush or roller ever again.

Before

I should have know better though, as I had the itch to paint by Christmas. One wall at a time baby, one wall at a time. This is how far I have gotten - one full wall in the kitchen in 3 weeks. Some of the delay was because we were having people over for both Easter and the weekend after and I didn't want the paint tape up while we had company. Once the tape goes up, I like to have that section done in two nights. And by doing one wall at a time, I still get to enjoy my evenings.